I attended the 5:00 Lifechurch.tv South OKC experience and had a great time. I decided I would try and catch the 6:30 NE OKC experience. The campus is just a year old and has a great feel. It is obvious that the development folks learned lessons from the other campuses and applied them to this build out. The lobby is very spacious and has lots of relational spaces. In case you were wondering YES everything is on wheels at this campus as well. All of there hospitality areas are on wheels...amazing! These guys do a great job in the area of hospitality, but I will talk about that in another post.
In this post I want to talk about the 5 "focuses" of Lifechurch.tv.
The picture to the right is of their lobby
and hanging from the ceiling are 5 large banners. Each banner represents on of the 5 areas of focus. Most churches have areas of focus, core values, mission/purpose statements, but these guys really put this into practice. Even as an outsider I was able to discern quickly what matters most to this church. Communicating, to an outsider, that which is the very most important thing can be very challenging in church work. Typically there is so much "great stuff" that it all becomes noise...just noise. Lifechurch.tv does more than just hang banners from the roof, their 5 focuses are the ONLY thing in the lobby. What I mean is there is no other information available for consumption other than that which pertains to the 5 focuses. In fact there is an area of the lobby dedicated to each of the 5 focuses.
There is a LifeYouth section complete with cool chairs, gaming console, iMac's and of course someone to talk to about youth stuff. There is a LifeMissions area with stuff to pick up about various micro mission experiences the campus is participating in for that season. There is a LifeGroup section complete with cards describing each group, a picture of the leader and a map to the location. Simple and smart. There is an area for "the Experience" which is your basic info about the church, FAQ's, etc. Finally, there is a children's area with info about being involved in LifeKids. This is all I, the outsider, need to know about the church and how I can get involved. Infact, if I don't have children I really only have 2 things to consider other than attending the Experience. How many churches can honestly say that when a guest hits their lobby they are only hit with 2-4 messages.
Take my own churches lobby for example. When you enter you are hit with the Cafe, then you see a series of tables loaded with stuff and lines of people, then you notice a "Guest Services" desk that appears to have info on it,then there is a bookstore and a place to but stuff...all this before you enter the worship center. I think this is typical and I am beginning to realize how ineffective it can be.
Anyway, there was one more thing I noticed in these first two campuses. There seems to be an unspoken core value. Maybe it is spoken of, but that was not obvious to me as an outsider. It seems that Lifechurch.tv values peoples ability to remain anonymous. This is interesting to me because I I have been under the impression that this value was fading in the church world. In both of the experiences so far I was able to slip in and slip out with very little fuss. In fact had I been one of the folks who raised there hands at the end of the service I would have been allowed to make my way to the "next steps" shelf and pick up a kit that is filled with encouragement for new journey with Christ. I am sure someone was available to talk if that it what I wanted, but if I wanted to self start my relationship with Christ that is appears to be ok with the Lifechurch.tv folks.
Again, I am cool with this (not that ANYONE asked). It works in this culture. This is not to say that I was ignored or not made to feel welcomed. In fact in both locations the Campus Pastor was out, but I did meet both Associate Campus Pastors and they did a great job at making me feel comfortable, while still remaining anonymous. I am not sure if that will change with the next two campuses, but as of now it seems to be a part of the Lifechurch.tv DNA.
In my next post I am going to talk about hospitality and the heart of Lifechurch.tv -- stay tuned!
